FAIRBANKS, Alaska - Just about everyone in America has a cellphone these days, but for people in rural Alaska, they're hard to come by. In fact, there's only one person in the village of Hughes that has a cell phone. When it comes to modern technology, rural villages are often left behind.

Wednesday, teachers and district staff from the Yukon and Koyukuk school district got trained in emerging technologies like 3D printing and robots. This kind of education is valuable for undeserved students in small communities with technology challenges. They'll integrate relevant technology solutions into the school's programs, hoping to advance the students education and '21st century skills.'

Tomorrow’s jobs will demand collaborative workers steeped in hands-on problem solving. To that end, digital learning is leveling the playing field for far-flung disadvantaged students who previously would have had no chance to be part of this new workforce, as well as boosting the skills of students and workers closer to home. Cloud, virtualization, and software-defined networking—along with consumer electronic devices—are among the many advanced technologies enabling this development.

CoSN, VMware and Team4Tech have teamed up to provide instructional and technological support to a rural district in Utah. The 3,000-student district will work with the companies to build strong, sustainable technological infrastructure and provide educators and administrators with edtech-centered education.

This May, a team of volunteers will train educators in South Africa how to integrate technology and design-thinking into their classrooms.

The volunteers from Autodesk, Adobe, and Ketiv are partnering with Team4Tech to support the Greater Stellenbosch Development Trust (GSDT), Makupula Secondary School, and the Vision Afrika Community Center in Kayamandi, a township outside of Stellenbosch, South Africa. Kayamandi’s 35,000 residents largely live in informal housing and have historically had low economic and educational opportunities.

Responding to the need to develop leaders who can lead through VUCA, the VMware Foundation created a unique leadership development program called Good Gigs, a three-month, immersive Service Learning program. Good Gigs fosters learning by bringing together a global team to use their professional skills in a new working environment with limited resources. Read more about the Good Gigs program, which Team4Tech helps facilitate, in this article.

In December 2016, six employees continued our partnership with Adobe, by forming a second team to embark on a two-week service project to train teachers on how to implement technology in their classrooms. In this group reflective post on the Adobe Spark platform, volunteers tell the story of our first project in partnership with CARE Cambodia, a branch of the global NGO that provides aid and development to Cambodia’s rural areas.

Ah, yes, here we are again! Announcing to the world that there are millennials out there who do not fit into negative millennial stereotypes. We’re loud, we’re proud and we’re not going anywhere.

According to the 2014 Millennial Impact Report, cause work is the No. 3 factor for millennials in deciding where they would like to apply for jobs. We are also 77% “more likely to volunteer if we can donate [our] skills.”

An article in the November issue of Harvard Business Review says $160 billion is spent annually on employee training and education in the U.S. Globally, that number is more than $350 billion. Yet despite the significant amount of money spent, the article reports many leaders believe these programs do not bring lasting change.

Co-founder Julie Clugage recently contributed a post on Autodesk Ideas by Design Medium blog, reflecting on the evolution of both her personal and our organizational approach to engaging tech in international development, and how it came to life in our spring 2016 project in South Africa at Makupula Secondary School.

Monkeys, power shortages, and cold conditions didn’t deter a team of VMware people and teachers in Northern India from integrating technology into the classroom. Earlier this year, a team of VMware people embarked on a Good Gigs Trek - the VMware Foundation’s leadership program- with the goal of advancing the quality of education for girls through technology in collaboration with CARE India.

To the layperson, the words "design thinking" might not conjure much. If you're a designer, an engineer, or an architect, it might be the idea of iterating to build the proverbial better mousetrap (or a remote control that doesn't drive users crazy with superfluous buttons).

In Diepsloot, a township outside Johannesburg, South Africa, the LEAP Science and Maths School is a bright spot in an underserved community. The school, one of six run by the nonprofit Langa Education Assistance Program (LEAP) organization, provides a top-class education for economically disadvantaged students from grades 8 to 12, creating the opportunity for transformative learning and a fulfilling future. VMware Foundation recently partnered with the nonprofit, sending a team of nine employees on a Good Gig to inspire the teachers and students with the possibilities of technology in the classroom. Learn more about this project that Team4Tech helped facilitate.

Each year Watermark, a Silicon Valley-based nonprofit with the mission of fostering community amongst executive women, awards five outstanding women who have risen to the top of their fields in the following categories: corporate, nonprofit, entrepreneur, professional services, and emerging leader. This year's winners are no exception. Each has demonstrated innovation and excellence in a variety of industries. On November 17, a celebration in their honor will take place at the Hyatt, San Francisco Airport.

The 2014 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing was a record-breaker in every way. Eight thousand attendees. A waiting list of another thousand. Three thousand-plus attendees from academia, representing 144 colleges and universities. Students and professionals from sixty-seven different countries and 925 different organizations.

At I Want Her Job, the description “dynamic self-starter” is often shared as a key trait for success. Today, we serve up the picture of a dynamic self-starter in Julie Clugage, the co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit Team4Tech. Their goal: to improve access to 21st century education in developing countries by connecting technology professionals with nonprofit and non-governmental organizations already working to improve education in these geographies.

When she was just 10 years old, Mary Jackson began her teaching career on the back porch of her family’s home in Easley, S.C.

It was there that she set up her chalkboard and led her imaginary classroom. “I would use my yardstick to tap my make-believe students who misbehaved, or didn’t get the right answer,” Ms. Jackson said.

The NextWomen Career Theme: Venture Capital.For this month’s theme, we will be interviewing a number of women from around the globe who have reached the top of the world’s most prestigious and/or male dominated professions. This is the story of Lila Ibrahim, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

Employees from Intel and VMware spent two weeks in Kenya last May as part of a joint service-learning project sponsored by the Intel Education Service Corps and Team4Tech, in conjunction with the Portland-based nonprofit Orphans Overseas.The team upgraded the computer lab at the Karibu Centre preschool, opened permanent computer labs in two local public schools, and made preparations to open two additional labs, with the potential to impact over 1000 students.

It’s been an exciting journey since our launch last April. In this short time, we’ve partnered closely with 86 universities and institutions to deliver hundreds of classes to 4.4 million learners (and counting). We’ve also launched new programs to support student learning, including Coursera’s successful Signature Track, the Teacher Professional Development Track, and the Global Translation Partners Program. Thanks to great faculty and universities around the world, we’ve become the leader in creating solutions for education access and affordability.

A mentor recently shared with me an interesting observation. On her visits to college campuses, she makes it a point to talk to students about why they chose engineering as a career field. The prevailing answer used to be, “I want to design and create amazing things.” Increasingly, the answer has become, “I want to change the world.”

Ever since the new government announced in their manifesto that they will be deploying laptops to standard 1 children in schools across Kenya, the big question on everyone’s mind is how will this program work? Can the country afford it? What would it take to make the idea work?

When Julie Clugage helped to establish Team4Tech last year with co-founder Lila Ibrahim, it was the culmination of more than 20 years of experience in education, technology and economic development. The fledgling organization acts as a catalyst for change by matching tech industry professionals, products and resources with accredited non-profit projects that aim to make a difference in the quality of education around the globe. And Clugage was well prepared for the challenge.

For all the bunk about women not being able to do math and science, everyone can now be sure of one thing: This year three women were awarded Nobel Prizes in science and one in the economic sciences, bringing the number of women who have been awarded the honor in the sciences to 16; Marie Curie won twice. From this story on “mythbusters,” the women who sit at the apex of corporate America armed with math and science degrees, to the four 2009 laureates–Elinor Ostrom (the first woman to win the prize for economic science), Ada E. Yonath in chemistry, and Elizabeth H. Blackburn and Carol W.